It's reality check time guys, my church's youth minister's 13 year old son got killed today while riding his ATV in his backyard.
I would give details, but this is all that I have heard, just that he flipped it on top of himself, and his dad walked out and found him. Man, that really sucks for the family. The boy did NOT know anything about riding ATVs, and to my knowledge didn't ride one regularly.
This is very sad times, it kind of puts the scheme of things into perspective, and makes you realize that the things that you think are most important, actually mean nothing.
I was having this conversation with my parents for some odd reason, i'm 18...and I realized that "to me" an ATV would be a good way to go when it's your time, but try telling that to my or your family, and see what they think.
This is going to add up as another statistic to try to shut us down, and take away our quads. We must take some kind of preventative action to stop this from happening.

I guess that I am saying just be careful, because you never know when it could be you...it was almost me last year...

 

What happened to you?

 

I agree, we need to be careful.

Where the hell was this kids parents while an inexperienced child was riding a quad? That wasn't an accident, it was an accident waiting to happen. I can stress enough how important it is to be supervised if your young riders are inexperienced, and if possible, dont ride alone.

Sorry to hear about their loss.

 

My prayers aer with their family. I knew a kid that would ride fourwheelers reguarly and I would always see him in the desert speeding around. One day I was reading the newspaper and saw the BIG FRONT HEADLINE "ATV Claims Life of Local Teen" It was not until then then I found out that it was him. He was climbing a hill and flipped his quad on top of him and broke his neck. He was not found untill about 5 hours later.

 

Madweasel, his dad was cutting his front grass, the boy was riding in his BACK YARD. I am confused as to the exact circumstances, but I do know that it was on flat ground, leading me to believe that he was flying around, made a sharp turn, and flipped it on himself. His dad found him within 5 minutes and he was already dead. The cause of death were broken ribs punctured his lungs and he suffocated underneath his atv.
We have to do something about this to prevent it from happening. I agree about the experience thing, but bad things can happen to experienced riders too, I should know.
As far as what I did to myself, I flipped on a small, rooted hill, that was a nothing of a hill. I wasn't expecting it, so I was just sitting on the seat, hit a root wrong and I pinned the throttle. I ended up beneath the atv with a broke pelvis in 3 places and a torn uretha. It was a matter of 8 inches from me doing the same thing this boy did. The thing is that I recovered (6months) and made it back to normal, and I feel sorry for his family now, that will never see him again.

 

Dont get me wrong, I know it can happen to anyone. I also feel terrible about what happened. Parents need to supervise though. My stepdaughter has a five and three year old and she is a space cadet sometimes, if we are out at the lake or riding and other people are around she assumes they are watching the kids and she way pay a whole lot of attention. Shes like a large percent of our population that does the same thing. I imagine 75% of atv accidents involving children could have been avoided if supervised properly and shown how to ride. It sickens me when I hear of accidents that were a result of this.